“You can’t really cook for yourself,” the woman said. “Just snacks and pizza, that sort of thing. We don’t really offer kitchen privileges…”
“I usually eat out,” Ricky said. “Not a big eater, anyway.”
The owner continued to eye him. “How long would you be staying? We usually rent for the school year…”
“That would be fine,” he said. “Do you want a lease?”
“No. A handshake is usually all we require. We pay utilities, except for the phone. There’s a separate line up here. That’s your business. The phone company will activate it when you want. No guests. No parties. No music blaring. No late nights-”
He smiled, and interrupted her, “And you usually rent to students?”
She saw the contradiction. “Well, serious students, when we can find them.”
“Are you here alone with your child?”
She shook her head with a small grin. “There’s a flattering question. He’s my grandson. My daughter is at school. Divorced and getting her accountant’s degree. I watch the boy while she’s working or studying, which is just about all the time.”
Ricky nodded. “I’m a pretty private guy,” he said, “and I’m pretty quiet. I work a couple of jobs, which takes up a good deal of my time. And in my free time, I study.”
“You’re old to be a student. Maybe a bit too old.”
“We’re never too old to learn, are we?”
The woman smiled again. She continued to eye him cautiously.
“Are you dangerous, Mr. Lively? Or are you running away from something?”
Ricky considered his reply, before speaking. “Stopped running, Mrs…”
“Williams. Janet. The boy is Evan and my daughter whom you haven’t met is Andrea.”
“Well, this is where I’m stopping, Mrs. Williams. I’m not fleeing from a crime or an ex-wife and her lawyer, or a right-wing Christian cult, although you might allow your imagination to race ahead in one or all of those directions. And, as for being dangerous, well, if I was, why would I be running away?”
“That’s a good point,” Mrs. Williams said. “It’s my house, you see. And we’re two single women with a child…”
“Your concerns are well founded. I don’t blame you for asking.”
“I don’t know how much I believe of what you’ve said,” Mrs. Williams responded.
“Is believing all that important, Mrs. Williams? Would it make a difference if I told you I was some alien from a different planet sent here to investigate the lifestyles of the folks of Durham, New Hampshire, prior to our invasion of the world? Or if I said I was a Russian spy, or an Arab terrorist, just a step ahead of the FBI and would it be okay if I used the bathroom to concoct bombs? There are all sorts of tales one can weave, but ultimately all are irrelevant. The truth that you need to know is whether I will be quiet, keep to myself, pay my rent on time, and generally speaking, not bother you, your daughter, or your grandson. Isn’t that really what is critical here?”
Mrs. Williams smiled. “I think I like you, Mr. Lively. I don’t know that I trust you all that much yet, and certainly don’t believe you. But I like the way you put things, which means you’ve passed the first test. But how about a month’s security and first month’s rent and then we’ll do things on a month-to-month basis, so that if one or the other of us feels uncomfortable, we can bring things to a quick conclusion?”
Ricky smiled and took the old woman’s hand. “In my experience,” he said, “quick conclusions are elusive. And how would you define uncomfortable?”
The smile on the older woman’s face broadened some, and she maintained her grip on Ricky’s hand. “I would define uncomfortable with the numerals nine, one, and one, punched on the telephone keypad and a subsequent series of any number of unpleasantly pointed questions from humorless men in blue uniforms. Is that clear?”
“Clear enough, Mrs. Williams,” Ricky said. “I think we have an agreement.”
“I thought so,” Mrs. Williams replied.
Routine came as quickly to Ricky’s life as the fall did to New Hampshire.
At the grocery store he was swiftly given a raise and additional new responsibilities, although the manager did ask him why he hadn’t seen him in any meetings, and so Ricky went to several, rising once or twice in a church basement to address the room filled with alcoholics, concocting a typical tale of life ruined by drink that brought murmurs of understanding from the collected men and women and several heartfelt embraces afterward, that Ricky felt hypocritical accepting. He liked his job at the grocery store, and got along well, if not expansively, with the other workers there, sharing the occasional lunch break, joking, maintaining a friendliness that successfully masked his isolation. Inventory was something he seemed to have a knack for, which made him think that stocking shelves with foodstuffs was not all that dissimilar to what he’d done for patients. They, too, had had to have their shelves restored and refilled.
A more important coup came in mid-October, when he spotted an ad for part-time help on the janitorial staff at the university. He quit his cash register job at the Dairy Mart and started sweeping and mopping in the science labs for four hours a day. He approached this task with a singleness of purpose that impressed his supervisor. But, more critically, this provided Ricky with a uniform, a locker where he could change clothes, and a university identification card, which in turn, gave him access to the computer system. Between the local library and the computer banks, Ricky went about the task of creating a new world for himself.
He gave himself an electronic name: Odysseus.
This gave rise to an electronic mail address and access to all the Internet had to offer. He opened various accounts, using his Mailboxes Etc. post office box as a home address.
He then took a second step, to create an entirely new person. Someone who had never existed, but who had a claim on the world, in the form of a modest credit history, licenses, and the sort of past that is easily documented. Some of this was simple, such as obtaining false identification in a new name. He once again marveled at the literally thousands of companies on the Internet that would provide fake IDs “for novelty purposes only.” He started ordering fake driver’s licenses and college IDs. He was also able to obtain a diploma from the University of Iowa, class of 1970, and a birth certificate from a nonexistent hospital in Des Moines. He also got himself added to the alumni list at a defunct Catholic high school in that city. He invented a phony Social Security number for himself. Armed with this pile of new material, he went to a rival bank to where he had already established Richard Lively’s account and opened another small checking account in a second name. This name he chose with some thought: Frederick Lazarus. His own first name coupled with the name of the man raised from the dead.
It was in the persona of Frederick Lazarus that Ricky began his search.
He had the simplest of ideas: Richard Lively would be real and would have a safe and secure existence. He would be home. Frederick Lazarus was a fiction. There would be no connection between the two characters. One man was a man who would breathe the anonymity of normalcy. The other was a creation and if anyone ever came asking about Frederick Lazarus, they would discover that he had no substance other than phony numbers and imaginary identity. He could be dangerous. He could be criminal. He could be a man of risks. But he would be a fiction ultimately designed with one single purpose.
To ferret out the man who had ruined Ricky’s life and repay in kind.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ricky let weeks slide into months, let the New Hampshire winter envelop him, disappearing into the cold and dark that hid him from everything that had happened. He let his life as Richard Lively grow daily, while at the same time he continued to add details to his secondary persona, Frederick Lazarus. Richard Lively went to college basketball games when he had an evening off, occasionally baby-sat for his landladies who had rapidly come to trust him, had an exemplary attendance record at work, and gained the respect of his coworkers at the grocery store and the university maintenance department by adopting a kidding, joking, almost devil-may-care personality, that seemed to not take much seriously except for diligent, hard work. When asked about his past, he either made up some modest tale, nothing ever so outrageous that it wouldn’t be believed, or deflected the question with a question. Ricky, the onetime psychoanalyst, found himself to be expert at this, creating a situation where people often thought that he’d been talking about himself, but in reality was talking about them. He was a little surprised at how easily all the lying came to him.